Spinning black holes are ultimate cosmic batteries

YOU wouldn't want to be nearby when a spinning black hole lets rip. It now seems they can store and unleash the energy of billions of supernovae, with potentially devastating consequences for their host galaxies.

Many of the supermassive black holes that lurk at the centre of galaxies fire out powerful plasma jets that extend for millions of light years. Though the details of how these jets are produced remain murky, there seems to be only two plausible power sources: one is matter falling onto the black hole, which can't explain all the cases. The other source is the black hole's stored rotational energy. Calculations suggest it should be possible for jets to siphon off energy at the expense of the black hole's rotation as long as magnetic fields are present to connect the black hole to any matter nearby. Persuasive evidence for this has been lacking.

Now ...

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